6d6 RPG: Quantum Flux

After some consideration, I realized that my personal experiments with making characters in 6d6 RPG could be discussed as a sideline to some thoughts on the 6d6 module: Quantum Flux. Since my posting has been a little anemic the last two weeks, I’ve been waiting to write about this too long.

Quantum Flux is an adventure for the 6D6 RPG. It’s a big document, 122 pages for the pdf proof I was working from. Some of that chunk is made up of the card decks for the pre-gen characters provided for the adventure as well as the various aliens and such. I’d say this is one weakness of a pre-written module for 6D6. Printing out and assembling the card decks (or simply the inclusion of them in the module) creates a bigger commitment of resources to “NPC stats” than say, a few stat blocks at the back of more traditional system’s adventures. This is not a huge issue, just something that occurred to me as I was reading things through.

The adventure itself is very interesting. I don’t want to give too much away because there is an element of mystery and discovery in the adventure (along with action and aliens). Suffice it to say that the adventure is pretty much a Space/Horror crossbreed and the references to genre films as inspiration and the overall advice to the Game Leader all points in this direction — including an injunction to “(F)ocus on building tension and paranoia. The rules are not important” (QF 1,2).

With the stated intent of emulating a horror film set in space, the adventure dives in and does that well. It should come as no surprise to a player what is going on… The space hulk, the expert crew trapped on it, the aliens, the secrets that come to light. All pretty typical fare — and I mean that in a good way. The adventure does a great job of playing to the inspirations and being exactly what one would expect, while also staying fresh enough and interesting despite those associations. I’ll just say it. I did enjoy it quite a bit.

One of my favorite touches — something I enjoyed personally — was the ship’s AI and the Avatar body the AI uses to interact with people on the ship. This was a clever touch that I think some GL’s could do a lot with — and it was just creepy enough in its own right that as I was even just reading the adventure I started thinking about ways to use it that maybe didn’t have anything to do with the core adventure itself.

One gripe I do have. The pregen characters were all described in pretty glowing terms in their descriptions — take Blaize Starfall (the pilot) for instance — but I never felt like she actually lives up to her potential mechanically. I coudld review all the PCs and their decks, but maybe it was just me? I just felt as if the PCs were perhaps designed somewhat differently than I’d have expected considering their descriptions in the front of the adventure. You might feel differently.

Overall, Quantum Flux promises a specific experience and it delivers. Well. If you’ve looked into the 6d6 RPG and want a great adventure for it, or you want a space/alien/horror experience on a huge derelict ship that you can use in another game, check out Quantum Flux.

PS — it bears noting, I think one great (probably unintended) strength of the 6d6 system is the ease with which you could convert adventures for this system into any other.

Post navigation

One response

[…] RPG’s Quantum Flux sounds fun as a science fiction adventure using the 6d6 system. Morrisonmp offers a solid review of points both good and bad about the adventure. And I think the feedback is constructive about the potential problems he found. This is another […]